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Category: Politics

You may have heard the brouhaha about the Google manifesto in which an angry white dude expressed his dismay at having to work alongside women because they have cooties. Unsurprisingly, a huge number of people are supporting this man because as it turns out, men and women do not have the same anatomy (who knew!), and therefore it cannot be sexist to say that these anatomical differences render women unsuitable for careers in IT. I mean, it’s just basic anatomy, for fuck’s sake! How can it be sexist to point out that women have boobies and plumbing and hormones (gross!) and neurosis?! That’s not sexism, it’s science!

This “it’s just biology that women can’t do tech jobs” mindset dovetails with the resurgence of discussions about genetically based racial IQ differences, a conversation that in some circles has never gone away but was given a boost recently when New Atheist messiah Sam Harris interviewedThe Bell Curve author Charles Murray. There are a lot of reasons why Murray’s work and Murray himself are controversial, none of which I want to go into in detail here, but which are summarized and impeccably cited here. So it was with that endorsement of Murray in mind that I tweeted this:

Let’s be frank: In his interview, Harris all but prostrated himself before Charles Murray. He stated unequivocally (and incorrectly) that Murray’s work is scientifically undisputed and his methods unimpeachable, and he fawned over him as a pure-hearted hero whose only sin was to seek earnest answers to important but uncomfortable questions. Harris railed against Murray’s critics as universally dishonest SJW ideologues driven by out of control political correctness, with nary a scientific or statistical leg to stand on in opposition to Murray’s conclusions. In doing so, Harris gave his enthusiastic endorsement to the worldview that society is right to treat people according to their (assumed) genetic strengths and weaknesses. Murray’s own work – the work that Harris extolled as scientifically beyond reproach – envisions a world in which blacks, women, and others quietly accept their proper roles based on their genetic limitations. It’s just a coincidence, naturally, that white men are genetically more suited for – well, everything that results in wealth and power.

So when I credit Harris for playing a role in advancing the clearly widely held belief that women are biologically unfit for IT jobs, it’s because he DID play a role. By not just normalizing but canonizing Charles Murray, Harris has given the green light to efforts to deny the existence of racism and sexism because science itself says women and POC are less intelligent and, therefore, rightfully excluded from domains that create wealth and influence. Whether or not he personally thinks the world should work this way is beside the point when he heaps breathless praise and aggressive promotion upon – and therefore emboldens – individuals who by their own admission think it should.

As far as Harris’s protestations that even if we know that, say, blacks are dumb compared to whites, we should still judge people as individuals, these are hollow platitudes. For one thing, public policy is shaped by, and in some cases predicated upon, the probability of certain things being true; if it is widely accepted as likely that black people are dumb compared to white people, then policy related to how blacks are treated (in the justice system, employment, higher education, etc.) will look very different than it would absent such an assumption. What’s more, “reserve judgment because not every black person / woman you meet will be dumb” is hardly an egalitarian outlook, and things like the anchoring heuristic will make it extremely difficult if not impossible for POC and women to convince their white male counterparts that they really are just as intelligent – and it goes without saying that once white men have been told to expect inferiority, the burden will always lie squarely on POC and women to prove their worth.

I realize that many of Harris’s more dishonest acolytes are shrieking “When did he ever utter the words ‘women are unfit for IT jobs?!’ That’s right, NEVER!” And they’re right that to my knowledge, he has never uttered those words. But he has given his imprimatur to biological determinism, with the full knowledge that people will use that against marginalized populations for their own benefit, and will cast aside even disingenuous pleas to view each person as an individual. I am not suggesting that Harris is singularly responsible for this state of affairs – that would be absurd and unfair. But he cannot disavow his own role in this outcome.

I can think of little else that I despise more than hypocrisy: The application of different standards (of evidence, morality, or anything else) to those things of which we approve or which benefit us vs. those things we dislike or which benefit others. Of course we are all human and subject to cognitive biases in varying degrees, an unfortunate but inevitable consequence of our hard wiring. Excessive hypocrisy, however, is a mark of both intellectual laziness and intellectual dishonesty, and especially for those of us who claim the mantle of skeptic / critical thinker / champion of evidence, we should be perpetually vigilant for signs of it in ourselves and take decisive corrective action when we find it. Here are a few clues that may help you determine whether your hypocrisy self-awareness meter requires calibration.

You spend a lot of time defending Milo Yiannopolous and Richard Spencer under the banner of “we have to protect even the most offensive speech,” but did not defend Kathy Griffin’s mock ISIS photo under the banner of “we have to protect even the most offensive speech.”

You chastise others for their echo chambers and admonish them to engage with to their opponents, but block people who disagree with you on Facebook and Twitter.

You have ever said “fuck your feelings” with regard to perceived political correctness, but lamented the lack of respect shown to Mike Pence when he was booed at a Broadway show.

You were horrified by the evangelical Christian trend of “purity balls” but laud hijab as a feminist symbol.

You supported the Benghazi investigations but oppose the Trump-Russia investigation.

It bothered you that Richard Spencer lost his gym membership, but you think LGBT couples should just find another bakery.

You criticize western feminists who talk about sexist imagery in comics for overly frivolous concerns, but complain about women-only screenings of the film Wonder Woman.

You called the people who were outraged when Trump bragged about grabbing women’s genitals without their permission “snowflakes,” but not the people who were outraged when Colin Kaepernick didn’t stand for the national anthem.

You were more bothered by Michelle Obama’s bare arms than by Melania Trump’s nudity.

You characterize Milo Yiannopolous as “just a troll” but an anti-Trump D-list comedian as “a Leftist celebrated public figure.”

You dismiss non-binary concepts of gender as not based in science, but defended the “Penis as Social Construct” hoax by saying even if this hoax didn’t debunk the field of gender studies, it doesn’t matter because everyone knows a better hoax would have.

You oppose legal abortion but support the death penalty.

You said jokes about the death of Roger Ailes were disrespectful of Ailes’s family, but you promote Sandy Hook truther Alex Jones or call criticism of Sean Hannity’s treatment of the Rich family “regressive.”

You claim to oppose Islam on behalf of the women it oppresses, but promote personalities who deny the existence of date rape or who call for white women to be publicly flogged for sexual impropriety.

You deny that Western colonialism turns Muslims into Islamists, but claim that too much political correctness turns white people into racists.

You spent weeks or months condemning the Richard Spencer punch and holding it up as evidence of pervasive violence on the Left, but justified, laughed at, or remained silent when a conservative politician assaulted a journalist and deny it is indicative of a violence problem on the Right.

You spend more time worrying about the threat to free speech posed by Ann Coulter being dis-invited from speaking at a college campus than you do about a citizen being convicted and imprisoned for laughing at a government official (or a bill that would send teenagers to federal prison for sexting, or a journalist being arrested for asking a government official a question, or state legislatures passing laws criminalizing peaceful protests).

You declare the importance of seeing people as individuals rather than as collectives while making hasty generalizations about feminists, Muslims, Democrats, Leftists, etc.

You speak out against anti-LGBT attitudes embraced by conservative Christians, but file anti-LGBT attitudes among Muslims under “cultural differences.”

You denigrate the boycott of Sean Hannity’s advertisers in response to his treatment of the Rich family as a regressive leftist attack for “wrong think,” but were supportive or silent when conservatives boycotted Beauty and the Beast for having a gay character (or Hamilton because the cast addressed Mike Pence; or Budweiser, 84 Lumber, CocaCola, Airbnb, Kia, and Tiffany for airing SuperBowl ads with pro-diversity messages; or Nordstrom for dropping Ivanka Trump’s clothing line; or Netflix for having a show called Dear White People; or Starbucks for having insufficiently Christian holiday coffee cups; or Hawaii because a federal judge there ruled against Trump’s travel ban; or Target for encouraging trans people to use their restroom of choice; or Target again for banning loaded guns in its stores; or ABC for cancelling Last Man Standing; or . . . )

This is a modified and updated version of a similar list I posted in February 2016. The bad news for some people will be that they see some of their closely held beliefs being contradicted here. For my part the bad news is that the list is not only still relevant but required an update. Still, there are some things that simply must be said (and more than once, apparently).

9/11 was not an inside job.

It wasn’t a “false flag” either.

Neither was Sandy Hook.

Neither were the shootings in Orlando, Charleston, San Bernardino, Colorado Springs, Ft. Hood, or anywhere else.

I believe that the only hope for humanity lies in the embrace of evidence-based thinking. Whether the subject is religion or science or politics or anything in between, an earnest desire to ascertain reality demands that we seek the best available evidence, acknowledge our biases, do our best to compensate for them, and be willing to adjust our worldview accordingly. This is necessary even (perhaps especially) when doing so is difficult – in other words, all the time.

Intellectual honesty is uncomfortable. Personal growth usually is too. It is easy to talk ourselves into believing that only others suffer the impairment of cognitive bias, or that we are otherwise exceptional and therefore exempt from the rules we expect others to follow. It feels good to be right and even better to be righteous, whereas admitting fallibility can be awkward, humiliating, or painful. But we must resist the siren song of comforting self-delusion and struggle, however clumsily, to reserve the highest standards for ourselves.

Moving beyond superstition and tribalism isn’t just about the satisfaction of being right: It’s about making the world a better place. It’s about clearing away the excuses and the ignorance that too often get in the way of seeing our common humanity, and finding our way to a more ethical, more moral, more productive society.

Bill Maher compares the execrable Milo Yiannopoulos to the late Christopher Hitchens. No, seriously.
I admit I feel dreadful that I’m investing valuable time and neurons on the likes of the vile hominid Milo Yiannopoulos. However, following his appearance on Real Time with Bill Maher on Friday and the inevitable pearl-clutching analysis that followed, my need to throw my own pearls into the fray outweighs my annoyance at needing to do so. So here are my two cents, for what little they’re worth, and I shall henceforth endeavor to not speak his name again.

1. I’m so tired of the “the only reason Milo Yiannopoulos is so popular is that the Left opposes him so strongly” trope; it’s tired, facile, and intellectually lazy. Perhaps we should consider the possibility that Milo is popular because a lot of people agree with his views and like the fact that he’s utterly shameless and cruel. We really need to stop talking about the Right as if they’re either automatons or toddlers who can neither understand the reasons why they do what they do, nor be held accountable for doing it.
2. Every interview Yiannopoulos ever gives into perpetuity should start with “Why do you think it’s worse for a child rapist to be embarrassed than for a child to be raped?” and end with “Why do you think children who get raped are responsible for their rape?” There’s an awful lot of Milo-apologia that says “Let people hear from both sides & then decide for themselves what they think of him,” but that’s not possible when his hosts help him conceal this ugly aspect of his persona. Failure to remind the audience that this is the kind of “person” they’re dealing with is a failure of journalistic integrity at best, and a deliberate misrepresentation of the facts at worst.
3. That the Right has shackled the principle of free speech to this intellectually & morally bankrupt attention whore is not accidental. They’ve figured out how to portray any objection to Yiannopoulos on any grounds whatsoever as an assault on free speech and “evidence” that the Left is afraid of his ideas. In this manner they badger, bully, & shame their way into ever bigger platforms and ever more influential interlocutors, further legitimizing him and his views. He’s become a bludgeon to do the opposite of no-platforming, a kind of “forced-platforming” in which denying him access to any stage or declining to engage with him for any reason can be held up as just more proof that the Left are the real fascists.

4. Yiannopoulos is not the next Hitch. He’s not even the next Alex Jones.

We’ve heard a lot since the election about how the Left needs to stop accusing Trump voters of being racist, that there were many other legitimate and complex reasons for supporting his candidacy, and that rather than accuse and assume, we should ask and listen. I tried in good faith to do this with my last post, addressing it to the Trump supporters who claim to have been motivated by concerns other than racial animus, and I received two whole responses, both of which more or less said “LIBTARD!”

Where, then, are these thoughtful, intellectually defensible arguments in support of a Trump presidency? I submit they can be found in the same place as Yahweh, the Easter Bunny, and unicorns: In the imaginations of their believers. The rationale for supporting Trump as an atheist activist is even less coherent. If anything, the atheist community should be decisively opposed to the incoming regime for at least five reasons.

1. Trump has packed his administration with religious zealots who are openly anti-science and anti-secularism.

Climate change denial? Check. Creationism? Yup. Diverting public funds to Christian schools to “advance God’s kingdom?” Of course. Linking vaccines with autism? Goes without saying. Religion-based discrimination? Bring it on. The President Elect and his merry band of close advisors are uniformly on the wrong side of all of these issues – that is to say, they are on the side in opposition to the scientific evidence and consensus, as well as constitutional norms. Vice President Elect Mike Pence once opposed funding for AIDS research in favor of programs that pray away the gay. Secretary of Energy nominee Rick Perry’s policy response to drought when he was governor of Texas was to tell residents to pray. Anyone who claims to value science, evidence, and secularism should be alarmed by these appointments.

2. Trump and the GOP-controlled Senate will be packing the federal courts, including the Supreme Court, with conservative judges who are sympathetic to Christianity and likely to hold a broad view of what constitutes “religious liberty.”

Trump has repeatedly promised to appoint Supreme Court judges who will overturn Roe v. Wade. But SCOTUS isn’t the only windfall for the forced-birth crowd: Trump will have the opportunity to appoint dozens of judges to the federal bench all over the country, and based on his list of SCOTUS potentials, all of them are likely to share the same hostility to reproductive freedom and will thus be enthusiastically approved by the GOP-controlled Senate. State legislatures, emboldened by the demise of Roe and a federal bench warm to Religious LibertyTM, will begin restricting access to contraception by giving employers more and more leeway to deny insurance coverage for it on religious grounds and permission to fire workers who are using birth control or become pregnant. Ten Commandments monuments in courthouses and state houses will be deemed “traditional” rather than religious and be allowed to remain, thus signaling all non-Christians of the inherent bias against them in both the making and the upholding of laws. Marriage equality will be undermined or overturned, and when the courts uphold the First Amendment Defense Act (which Trump has promised to sign), discrimination against LGBT people – and really, anyone else to whom a so-called Christian business owner objects – will be fully legal and constitutional. The wall of separation under Trump will be weakened or obliterated.

3. Trump’s open hostility towards the press and his history of retribution against critics suggest he isambivalent towards free expression.

It is curious to see so many self-proclaimed free speech advocates supporting a man who just a few weeks ago declared that burning an American flag should result in a year in jail and loss of US citizenship and who has not had a press conference since July 27 of last year. Granted, Trump’s flag-burning statement was so ludicrously anti-constitutional that one’s instinct was to simply laugh it off with a shake of the head and an “as if.” But that laughter quickly turned to bile upon remembering that this came from the man who is about to move into the Oval Office. Did he really not know that flag-burning is constitutionally protected speech? Or did he know but thinks it should not be? And how unsettling is it that we even have to ask these questions?

Almost as troubling is Trump’s decades-long record of ruthlessly going after those he perceives as having criticized him, a trait which has not abated in the slightest since his election. It’s bad enough when the person trying to run you into the ground for a bad restaurant review is a rich mogul with a thin skin. When that person is the most powerful human being on earth with the entirety of the Justice Department, the military, and the rest of the United States government infrastructure at his disposal (not to mention perhaps the Russian one), a chilling effect on frank discussion and criticism is inevitable. This should be unnerving to us as citizens and downright outrageous to us as atheist activists; weakening the grip of superstition and destigmatizing atheism are predicated on our ability to criticize, satirize, mock, dismantle, and otherwise not defer to the closely held beliefs of others regardless of whose sensibilities we may offend. A climate in which public figures, journalists, and ordinary citizens are reluctant to challenge those in power for fear of the repercussions ought to be the New Atheist’s and Free Speech Warrior’s worst nightmare.

4. A registry of Muslims is not very far removed from a registry for atheists.

Admittedly, the Trump transition team has been unclear on what kind of registry they are proposing. Some claim it would simply be a registry of immigrants from majority Muslim nations, or nations with known terrorist activity. On the other hand, when Trump surrogates cite the World War II internment of American citizens of Japanese descent as a precedent, it is reasonable to question just how limited a Muslim registry would really be. Remember too that despite what we hear about “islamophobia,” religiously motivated hate crimes against Jews outnumber those against Muslims three-to-one, and the newly emboldened (thanks, PEOTUS!) white nationalist movement is already turning up the heat on American Jews. In this climate of singling out and marginalizing American citizens from religious minorities, and given that polls consistently show atheists effectively tied with Muslims as the most disliked group of all, as well as the common belief among religionists that godlessness is the root of all evil, is it really that hard to imagine repercussions for non-believers? Even if not in the form of a registry, the systematic collection of information on groups and individuals based on their perceived subversiveness is not outside the realm of possibility. Either way, there is no reason to think that the persecution of religious minorities will start and end with Muslims.

5. Trump represents the antithesis of humanist values.

Yes, I know that not all atheists identify as humanists, and not all humanists are atheists. Humanism is, however, often used as a loose synonym for atheism, and it is at the very least a common theme among nonbelievers that humans are not the filthy, pitiful sinners that theology asserts, and that people have inherent worth independent of the approval of an omnipotent creator. Add in such values as kindness, generosity, humility, willingness to seek evidence and admit error, and support for universal human rights and you’ve got yourself a pretty good description of a humanist irrespective of religious belief. Can you think of any list of honest Trump adjectives that includes the words kind, generous, humble, or willingness to admit error?

I will never, ever vote for any candidate who is not pro-choice. No matter what else a candidate may have going, if he or she opposes a woman’s right to choose a safe, legal abortion, I’m outta there.

This came up recently in a discussion with a “Bernie or Bust” guy who was saying he sees no difference between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Setting aside the fact that such a remark is either absurdly disingenuous or appallingly ignorant, I pointed out that even if on every other issue Clinton and Trump were identical (which of course they aren’t), Clinton is pro-choice, and that should be sufficient to tip the scales in Clinton’s favor.

This man then proceeded to lecture me – one might even say to mansplain – how abortion rights is an important issue, but income inequality is really the greatest challenge faced by Americans today and why it is narrow-minded and “selfish” (his word) for me to assign a higher priority to reproductive freedom. Eventually and perhaps inevitably he played the “you’re just voting with your vagina” card, at which point the conversation was over.

I quietly seethed over this exchange for a while and had almost forgotten about it until yesterday, when Donald Trump declared that as president he would seek to ban abortion and punish the women who had them. This seemed par for the course for Trump and for the GOP candidates in general, all of whom are rabidly anti-choice and who unquestionably delight in the idea of retribution against women who have abortions, but are politically savvy enough to express those intentions in code. What truly sparked my outrage was not the comment from Trump but the response from the messiah himself, Senator Bernie Sanders.

In an interview with Rachel Maddow, Sanders agreed that what Trump said was “shameful” and reiterated his position that “women have the right to control their own bodies.” But he then launched into a diatribe explaining why we shouldn’t be distracted by the proposals of a major presidential candidate about the limits of women’s authority over their bodies so that we can focus on the real issues.

“But what is Donald Trump’s position on raising the minimum wage? Well, he doesn’t think so. What is Donald Trump’s position on wages in America? Well, he said at a Republican debate he thinks wages are too high. What’s Donald Trump’s position on taxes? Well, he wants to give billionaire families like himself billions of dollars in tax breaks . . . Any stupid, absurd remark made by Donald Trump becomes the story of the week. Maybe, just maybe we might want to have a serious discussion about the serious issues facing America.”

Um, say what now?

Let’s get something straight here. I am a woman who has past her reproductive usefulness. The likelihood of my getting pregnant, even if I wanted to, without extensive and very costly medical intervention is effectively zero, and even with such intervention would still be remote. Abortion services are just not something I am ever going to need for the remainder of my days. But whether I personally would be inconvenienced by the inaccessibility of abortion is not the issue.

The proposition to restrict or deny women access to abortion is only partly about the actual act of abortion. The more insidious and more relevant implication of anti-abortion policies is this: They declare women to be less than fully human. A policy that says decisions regarding whether to proceed with a pregnancy are better made by distant bureaucrats with ideological axes to grind and political agendas to advance, rather than by the woman whose body, health, and future are at stake is a policy that relegates all women, no matter their reproductive status, to a lower class standing. It is a philosophy founded on and inextricable from the idea that women are inherently incapable of making sound moral decisions and are not entitled to the fundamental human right of bodily autonomy. It is an unambiguous declaration that women are neither capable nor deserving of self-agency. In other words, it’s not really about abortion so much as it is about what value our society assigns to the life of a woman.

I agree with Sanders that we do indeed need to have “a serious discussion about the serious issues facing America.” I for one can think of no more serious issue than whether my government will continue to view my person – and that of my daughter – as entitled to equal treatment under the law as a full citizen of the United States and as a human being. Because a discussion about income inequality is moot if women are forced out of the workplace to have babies and raise children they can’t afford, or into prison or an early grave for opting for an illegal abortion.